Babelian of the month

Story by

Translation by:

This month Lilian covered the Berlinale film festival bringing us a series of enticing reviews and fascinating insight. Lilian tells us about her dream about Almodovar, her first time with Cafébabel and the highs and lows of online journalism.

Cafébabel: De­scribe yourself in three words…

Lil­ian Pi­than: No. Yes. No.

What do you do in your life, as pro­fes­sion ?

I'm a trans­la­tor and lan­guage teacher.

What's your favourite dish ?

Gu­jarati sweet curry.

Your pre­ferred na­tion­al­ity in Eu­rope ? Why ?

None. They're all amaz­ing and ter­ri­ble at the same time and for dif­fer­ent rea­sons.

When did you write your first ar­ti­cle/trans­la­tion for Cafébabel ?

In 2009 when I was the taboulé eat­ing and bal­le­rina wear­ing in­tern of the Ger­man lan­guage ver­sion dur­ing strike times.

The cra­zi­est dream you've ever had ?

I re­mem­ber stum­bling through a post-apoc­a­lyp­tic land­scape once, made of grass and plas­tic. When I en­tered a large the­atre with neon vel­vet cur­tains, I met a di­shev­elled Almodóvar who smil­ingly gave me a bou­quet of faded tulips.

In one word, what does Cafébabel mean to you ?

The highs and lows of vol­un­teer­ing and of the in­ter­net in gen­eral.

Not learn­ing Japan­ese when I was young enough to get the ac­cent right.

The best place you've been in Eu­rope so far ? Why?

Its lit­er­a­ture. It holds every­thing that makes Eu­rope what it is.

A city in Eu­rope you would like to visit… Why you would like to go there ?

Lis­bon be­cause of its blue tiles and sweet pas­tries.

What does Eu­rope mean to you ?

Art, clouds, sculp­ture, stuffi­ness, nov­els, Lautréamont, his­tory, ex­per­i­men­tal the­atre, poi­so­nous ad­ver­tise­ments, life in­sur­ance, pasta aglio olio, melan­cho­lia. A place I al­ways have to get away from, but love to get back to.

Participate

Donate

You’ve reached the end of the article, but your Cafébabel adventure has just begun!
You can DONATE however much you’d like to help Cafébabel finance its quality reporting projects as well as its team of professional journalists.
The price of a coffee or a beer to support the independence of your favourite European magazine… that’s all it takes!
On behalf of the Cafébabel team, Merci, Gracias, Thanks, Grazie, Danke!